Fish courses, no Fiano was ever more appropriate

Dinner with fish and Fiano 2010 Terredora: the pleasure of inconsistency

After a string of intense work days, it does you good to relax with a restaurant dinner, avoiding dishes to wash and the effort of thinking about what to cook!
Obviously the even stronger motivation is to eat things you wouldn't have been able to get your teeth into at home!
So that evening we ended up at U' gnore – in my dialect O gnore means the father-in-law; but there, away from home, in Bari it means the dark one, the black one.
A restaurant born from a fishmonger's next door that bears the same name – a guarantee: fresh fish!

We order:

1. raw fish antipasto (in Bari you simply cannot skip it!)
2. raw shellfish (sea truffles included!)
3. various courses of cooked fish-based antipasti (including the octopus and vegetable skewer on fava bean cream, which stands out above all the others!)
4. grilled crustaceans, molluscs and red mullet

I would never have cooked all that goodness at home – but what do we drink?

I love contrast, so in a city that is not my own, eating things I couldn't have prepared at home, I order a wine from "my home": the choice falls on a Fiano 2010 from Cantine Terredora.

At another dinner, even the expert Alessandro Genova had relied on this cantina!

The wine comes from the Avellino area and is vinified with cold maceration of the grapes.
It presents itself with a beautiful intense straw yellow color and a cocktail of aromas of ripe fruits and flowers.
Pear, hawthorn, citrus, apricot, and acacia blossoms combine to deliver freshness and draw the nose toward another round of sniffing – which, done with greater attention, allows hints of bread crust and toasted hazelnut to come through.
On the palate an important and elegant body, ideal for ageing, and a pleasant acidity delivers freshness and generates just the right amount of salivation.
Very evident are the mineral and saline notes which, together with the other sensations perceived, keep our taste buds company for several seconds.

The pairing is ideal, the fish is fresh and flavourful, the diners are satisfied and… the wine is finished: let's order another one!